Criminal Minds The Lost Episodes
by JesterFromHell
Summary: The Reid Files - Episode 1: Rejected. 'In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable desire.' Diego Marchi *On Hiatus* Sorry guys!
1. Rejected Chapter 1

Hi peeps. I've been thinking a long time and finally got the time to start my first CM fanfic.

As you can already guess, it's Reid centric. Gotta love him!

So, if you got any advices, critique or something else, would be great if you could leave me a few words.

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds with all it's characters belongs to CBS. I don't own anything in this fic, except for the OCs, that'll cross your path once in a while. So, don't sue!

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**Criminal Minds - The Lost Episodes**

**

* * *

**

The Reid Files

Episode 1

* * *

**Rejected**

'In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable desire.'

Diego Marchi

**Chapter 1**

Near Northeast, Washington, D.C.

Sounds of hammering machines cutted through the air on a misty morning. An old apartment complex is got pulled down.

"Come on, Dave. Breakfast." A man signaled to the one working his way down the basement, operating a jackhammer. He stopped and wiped his eyes from the dust, which started to settle slowly. With a clearer view down the hole he held his breath. "What the...?"

Then he jumped down. Dust was in the air and his eyes slowly adjusted to darkness. He swallowed hard. "Guys..." A croak escaped his throat. He took a closer look. "Oh my god. Guys! Look at this." His alarmed co-workers started to gather, one jumped down. Both then froze at the sight of a dead body. "Call the police! We found something!"

B.A.U. headquarters, Quantico

"Well, it looks like she was down there for not too long." Hotch pressed his phone to his ear, listening to the officer on the other line, who he called one his acquaintances for some years now . "Was it murder?" The agent asked matter of factly. "She was tied and badly injured, probably caused her to die. Someone did this to her. And yet we think we have a lead, that might interests you." Hotch perked up. "What is it?" The other man cleared his throat. "Someone cut her tongue out. Well, more precisely, ripped it out." He almost whispered, sounding afraid. "Send the files over immediately." Hotch ordered with a hint of discomfort.

JJ looked at Hotch as they prepared for the meeting. "What is it?" The man showed her resigned look. "If I'm right about this, I know the file. Unsolved." JJ frowned. "Oh." Agent Hotchner rubbed his face. Rossi then sauntred in. "So, any leads?"

"Briefing starts as soon as the others are here." JJ announced.

'Paradise Coffee and Tales', Woodbridge, Washington D.C.

Dr. Spencer Reid was on his way to the BAU, making a short stop at the shop he had discovered a few weeks a go.

"Two coffees as always, right?" The girl smiled at Reid from behind the the counter. The tall skinny guy nodded. "As always.""Here you go, Sir." The brunette smiled at Dr. Spencer Reid with a stunning smile. "Oh thanks."

"Careful, it's hot." She handed him his two coffees. "Yeah..." He muttered, searching for money in the vastness of his brown leather bag.

Then his cell started buzzing wildly, while he got even more nervous. He'd be late if he couldn't find it right away.

"It's okay...If you don't have money right now, you can pay for those tomorrow. You come almost everyday anyway!" She tried to convince a nervous Reid, who felt very self-conscious. "I'm so sorry."

She just continued grinning, sensing he was kinda in a hurry. "It's alright. Just go." Reid returned the smile shyly. "I'm really sorry. But I promise, I'll give you the money next time."

The girl waved him off, still smiling broadly. He left the coffee shop and rushed down to the subway station to catch his train, almost spilling his coffee.

B.A.U. headquarters, Quantico

Hotchner, Rossi and JJ waited for the others until they arrived. Then they gathered at the round table in their briefing room, JJ remaint in front of them next to the big screen. Reid, Morgan and Prentiss simultaniously grabbed the files and Agent Jareau put up the photos of the crime scene and the victim on the screen.

"The victim is Jenna Marx, 20 years old. She was living here and visited university. She went missing two weeks ago. No suspects found. No clues, either. She disappeared on her way home. Last one, who saw her, was her friend and classmate Sienna Parker. She was found in the outskirts in the basement of an abandoned building during the wrecking works. She was tied and tortured, eventually dying in the process. The evidences found on her body also lets conclude she was raped. The unsub also did something, most likely a signature. He ripped the tongue out."

JJ switched to a picture of the dead body. "This leads us to the assumption, who maybe did this. His name is John Lee Darmer. 8 years ago, he was announced to be the murderer of three teenagers in. There names were Sarah McGee, Linda Rowen and the third was Lisa Cunnings. All were raped, tortured and left to die in abandoned buildings or caves, somewhere close to the town. First two had their tongues fed to themselves as well. Local police worked together with officers from here, because they were short on manpower. They were slowly solving the case, which lead to Darmer. He was known to be a shy worker at a ranch. Good knowledge of the area, which helped him to hide his victims. Police were close to track him down and to locate his last victim's position, but she was laready dead. He managed to escape and it has been reported he was never seen since then."

"I remember this case." Reid said quietly. "I read about it several years ago." Then he continued to read the file with his usual speed of light.

"Gideon worked on it with the attempt to do some sort of first profiling on a serial killer for testing measures. The B.A.U. didn't exist back then as it is now.." Hotchner announced gloomily.

Everyone exchanged a few looks. It was still hard. Jason Gideon was still more present as they liked him to be. All of them still missed him. He taught lead them. Every case was a matter of heart for him, and they all knew this one must have been no a few seconds, in which everyone, except for Rossi, was hanging after their own thought.

"He vanished? Just like that?"Morgan raised his brows and Reid closed his file, looking over at JJ. "Maybe, he got scared, because they almost caught him." The female shrugged, but Reid cocked his head, contemplating. "Or something else happened..."

"What about the tongue...? Why did he made his victim's eat them?" Rossi asked into the round.

"Maybe it's personal. Did he knew her? Making her eat it sounds like, she had said the wrong thing to this guy..." Morgan ventured professionally.

"We don't know yet. That's one thing we need to find out, if they knew each other. But considering his sexual motivation, maybe he got rejected, so he got mad and..." Hotch drew his own conclusions on what Morgan had said.

"...literally made her eat her own words..." Prentiss murmured silently and Rossi nodded. "Could be possible."

"Wait, you said the first two got their tongues ripped out, as well as the fourth, but what about the third victim?" Reid perked up suddenly.

"No records about it." Hotch informed him slowly. Reid opened his mouth in slight astonishment. "That's weird."

"We'll find out more, as soon as we get there." Hotch pressed his lips together.

"Is this all we got?" Morgan asked incredulously, but got interuppted, when Garcia suddenly popped up on the screen.

"Hey, guys! JJ, I'm sorry to inform you, that I haven't been able to find anything more. There's nothing on the data base. Strange." She unintentionally answered Derek's question.

"Where are the other files? I'm sure it was a huge case back then." Prentiss asked surprised, but Hotch shook his head. "8 years ago, computers weren't used that commonly. Could have been the data never had been digitalized, because it is a cold case."

"So it's all over there, stuffed up in cardboard boxes. Seems we have to browse them the old-fashioned way. Thanks, baby girl. If you find anything else, contact us." Morgan said. The analyst vanished from the screen. "Gotcha. Garcia out."

Derek gazed at Hotch, who stood up. "Rossi, Reid and I will go. The rest of you will go over to the Washington police department and search there. Interview the parents. Find out, if they knew the unsub already. Go and ask everyone, who visited the crime scene. Also find out more about that building."

All stood up and nodded at each other, then went out and separated.

"Shoot." Reid exclaimed suddenly. "Wha-?" Rossi asked puzzled, Hotch ignored him politely. "I forgot my coffee." He rushed back, almost stumbling.

"Wow, must be a good coffee...Kid's pretty excited about it..." Rossi muttered and grinned, but Reid was able to hear him.

"It is. The best around here." Reid told him with a sophisticated expression after he retrieved his beloved drink back. "Did you know, that...?" He then started, but Hotch glanced at him warningly. "Uhm...nevermind..." The skinny doctor mumbled pretty disappointed and followed his colleagues out of the building.

Greenville, Virginia

139 Miles and three 3 hours later the tree agents arrived at the town's police station."What a nice and idyllic town." Rossi stated as they got out of the SVU.

"Uhm, statistics say, that this phrase is used by almost 83 percent of all the small towns in Virgina as advertise. It's not a protected trademark and so often widely misinterpreted for it's common scope and the different opinions on that phrase."

Reid's brain immediately responded to Rossi's predication, while the older agent shunned himself for his inconsiderate loud outspoken thought.

No, he appreciated the younger man's knowledge by all means, but when the time was right and he felt like it. Hotch silenced Reid with one of his serious firm looks and they slowly walked up the stairs to the local police office and inside.

"You must be the FBI agents, I've been informed about." A man in his mid thirties stood up from his chair behind the front desk

"I'm Officer Josepf Wright." He extended his hands to greet them all, while Hotch introduced them. "You recognized that right away, when we walked in?" Rossi asked half amused. "Well, no offenses, but you guys stick out like a sore thump out here." He smiled mischievously, but let it go, when nobody else did.

"So, you know why we are here, too. Let's waste no time." Hotch told him with his usual stone face and Reid fiddled around in his bag, while Rossi looked around to examine the station. "Okay, follow me. But there's not much anyway."

Reid smiled politely over to him. "Even the smallest detail is important..." Then he got interrupted by Rossi. "This isn't the original station, right?"

The officer nodded and bit his inner cheek. "The old one got destroyed by a fire 5 years ago and most of the files burned along with it. I'm sorry. That's why I'm sure you won't find much."

They arrived at the small archive, what was nothing more then a single room with rackets with disturbingly few folders and boxes.

"Let me know, if there's anything more you need. I'll be in the front." The agents nodded and Joseph left.

Reid put his bag down. Rossi grabbed the first cardboard box, handing out the files. "Okay, let's start."

B.A.U. headquarters, Quantico

"Any clues, yet?" Prentiss asked Morgan who looked as disgruntled as she was feeling.

"Nothing. Nobody saw anything. Nobody knew she had been stalked or anything. Her friend said, that she didn't had that much acquaintances, but no enemies either. She was a shy, very polite person, which would never ever had given anybody the reason to hate her. She was keeping out of trouble and did nothing to attract any kind of attention. She had no problems in school. The teachers never noticed anything unusual." He briefed Prentiss shortly on what he had found out.

"Same with the family. She was the perfect daughter. She did a little bit of social work and also was welcome to baby-sit the neighbours childs.

Her room was tidy and just like a girl room would look like, nothing unusual. But, she did not have a diary, which we could have drawn some conclusions from. Unfortunately. And the family is still in shock, that there really could be a person who did not like her. They really have no idea, what could have happened. They never noticed, if their daughter might had been stalked and mostly knew all her friends personally."

Morgan rubbed his face and sat down on the table in the briefing room. Prentiss joined him and sipped on her coffee. "Mmh. Reid was right. It really is the best coffee I ever tasted around here."

Derek smiled weakly at her and then just stared dazily at the file again. "He probably tested every shop in D.C to find it." Emily grinned into her cup. "Probably...? You know he did. I guess he found his personal piece of heaven. Coffee and books at one store."

Then, after a few minutes of desolate silence, the door opened and JJ came in. "By the looks on your face, I reckon you have nothing..." Both nodded and lowered their heads. "Garcia checked the building and I asked around the neighbourhood of it. No one saw anybody walk in or out. It was just an empty building for quite a few years now and nobody paid attention to it."

Morgan slammed his flat hand on the table in frustration. "Damn. I hope the others have more luck. No clues. Not even a picture of this guy, to show it around."

We'll be back after a short commercial break. Hands off the remote!


	2. Rejected Chapter 2

Hi folks! Thanks for checking out the story so far.

Once again, reviews would be so much appreciated! This chapter, it's story time. We need to build up a bit of background, don't we?

So, blah blah blah. Here you go.

Disclaimer: Criminal Minds with all it's characters belongs to CBS. I don't own anything in this fic, except for the OCs, that'll cross your path once in a while. So, don't sue!

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**Criminal Minds - The Lost Episodes**

**

* * *

**

The Reid Files

Episode 1

* * *

**Rejected**

**Chapter 2**

Greenville, VA, Police Station

"Let's see, what we got so far." Hotch told his two companions and Reid started to organize pictures and sheets across the table.

"The first murder was in the summer of '99. She disappeared and was found 3 days later outside the town in the woods. The second victim disappeared four weeks later and was found 6 days after her murder. The bodies showed the same injuries, bruises, broken fingers, head trauma and both were missing their tongue, which police found out later, got feed to them. And they were raped. All injuries let assume they were beaten up and got hit with blunt objects. But no evidences were found. No fingerprints. Nothing."

Reid took a deep breath in, held it for a sec and let it out slowly, as he showed them another sheet. "This is a short resume, Gideon wrote."

They stared at it for a moment, before Hotch hesitantly took and read it. It was something close to a basic analysis of John Lee Darmer.

He presented it to Rossi, after he was through.

"...inferiority complex...not comfortable around women...highly frustrated and intimidated...undeveloped sense of responsebilitly...highly systematical behavior...possible mental disorders and sexual compulsion..." Rossi recapitulated the main points. "That's something to work with."

Reid gazed up at Hotch from where he was sitting and furrowed his brows. "But, the file of the third victim's isn't there. I only found the name, mentioned in the final report. Lisa Cunnings." He said and started to pack, because they were already done here.

"Let's ask the officer. We need to find someone, who was part of the investigations." Hotch suggested with a firm voice.

He couldn't accept the fact, there were no clues left. "And were taking the files with us." He motioned Reid to gather everything.

"So?" Joseph asked when they joined him in his office. "We need more. Were you here, when it all happened?" Rossi asked, but the officer looked down and shook his head. "No, I got assigned here after those murders. The whole town was in an uproar and people started leaving...There were three offivers back then. One had left the town. Haven't heard of him ever since. The second one died in the fire and the third, well, he's still here.

He kinda snapped after all this. But he never left, always saying he got to watch and wait. He still believes Darmer would return someday. His name is Richard Garraty." He shrugged and scratched his neck.

"We need to talk to him." The officer's eyes widened and he grimaced. "Well, do what you gotta do, but he's turned into a quirky hermit. You'll find him just outside the town. Half a mile to the southeast." Officer Wright stood up and put his finger on the map on the wall, and watched Reid clumsily pulling out his own, then marking the location. "Let's go." Hotch announced satisfied.

Reid had pictured the man as an old geezer, with a shotgun standing on his porch shouting at them, but they soon realized, he was nothing more than a solely lonely broken man. Deep wrinkles around sad and dazed eyes looked at them, when he opened up the door of his wooden house.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Garraty, but we like to talk to you." Hotch showed him his badge.

The old man sighed. "FBI? What do you want from me?" He wasked and Reid noticed, how his former weary eyes returned to life. "It's about John Lee Darmer and the murders. You lead the investigations back then, right? We have a few questions." Rossi took a few steps forward and looked him right in the eyes. "He's back, huh." He muttered under his breath, more to himself, than to the agents on his porch. They exchanged a brief look with each other. "Come in." Garraty stepped aside.

They sat down in the shabby small kitchen and were presented with what looked like coffee. Only Reid finally brought up enough courage to actually confirm, it was. It was the kind that'll knock you off your socks, he realized the moment he drank it. The doctor fortunately made it to swallow his sip, before spluttering it back into his cup. The man quirked an eye brow at him and smiled wryly.

"That's something you won't get in the big city, kid. Enjoy. Special brew." Spencer gulped and looked down abashed. "Uhm. It's good, it's good..." The man nodded approvingly. "You'll get used to it, my boy."

"So what do you want to know?" He asked with his croaky voice and watched the black surface in his own cup. "We want to know, what happened to Lisa Cunnings. Most of the reports got Wright, you're possibly the only one left to know." Agent Hotch told his opposite from across the table.

"There was another agent from Washington. He knows, too. His name was Jason Gideon." Garatty stated with shifting eyes.

"Uhm. Agent Gideon, he left..." The doctor said softly with hinted sadness in his voice. "Oh...Why? I thought he was pretty good. He could have really pulled it off."

Hotch glanced at Reid, seeing the effort of the younger man to stifle his grief, then informed Garraty on what happened.

"He was our leader actually. But then, after some incidents, he couldn't take it anymore and just ran away. His whereabouts are unknown."

The old man comprehended. "And I was wondering, why I hadn't heard from him. We always sent each other's letters, birthday and christmas cards.

We both liked these old-fashioned way to communicate with each other. I think, I could call him a friend ever since. He told me a lot. And I was able to learn a thing or two from him. He was a really honourable man. What a strange coincidence to have his former team members sitting in my kitchen, now." He seemed pretty impressed by it.

Reid's mouth hung slightly open and he stared at the old man, unable to say anything. Grey eyes stared back at him. "You must be the Doc, he was always rambling about. The young genius." Spencer's face saddened even more with hearing those words, a lump started to build up in his throat.

"Said, he was so proud of you. Like a father of his son." It took a lot out of Reid to suppress the tears. He slumped back into the chair.

Stirring up memories like that wasn't good. It would make them lose focus. Hotch knew and stepped in. "That's enough. There are other more important things to discuss, than Gideon." He sounded a bit more angered, than he intended to and regretted it a bit.

Richard Garraty took another sip of his coffee and looked very rueful. He couldn't have known, how much the young man was affected Gideon's disappearance, or his life without a father in general and how much it really meant to him to hear those words. But, he knew Jason had loved this boy.

"I just thought he should know." The old man siad without any signs of remorse. Reid gulped his coffee down. He felt proud, happy and sad, all at the same time. Then a hand was placed softly on his shoulder and he looked into Rossi's face. "It's okay." The younger man answered the silent asked question of his team mate.

Richard shifted in his chair and leaned forward. "To fully be able to understand our Johnny boy, I'm gonna tell you a story." He announced solemnly and placed his folded hands on the table.

"I lived in this town all my life. But it wasn't a town to begin with. It was a small community, founded by like-minded people, when I was a kid.

That was 70 years ago. Some people called it a religious thing. I called it stupid and fanatic. There was a human, who eventually became the leader. Because, every religion needs it. A shiny icon. She was a quite remarkable being, charismatic and stubborn. Her name was Millicent Darmer, formerly Wilkins."

Hotch, Rossi and Reid didn't need one second to know that he was talking about John Lee's mother. Hotch signalized him to go on.

Richard cleared his throat. "This woman was so convinced of her beliefs of perfection, many families started to follow until a unique village was forged. All living happily next to each other. But more and more people started to move in here eventually, not knowing anything about that. They just thought of it as a beautiful quiet place to be. Some were introduced to group, some were not. The village grew bigger. Her vision slowly seemed to crumble. Then it finally became a real town. She was forced to continue underneath the furface of it all. During all of that, she had fallen in love to one of them, they used to call outsiders, who moved in here later. Ray was a kind man, simple-minded indeed, but a good guy. They had a son. Johnny Lee. As he grew up, they realized he was different. Some say he was plain dumb, he had a very slow working brain. But he had inherited his father's kind personality. Then a tragedy struck her. Her husband died. He had been ill. Cancer, if I remember correctly. Her followers had already been distancing themselves from her, because she had married him. Her vision of the perfect people and community slowly dissolved by her own deeds. You can't choose, who you fall in love with, now can you? That's the flaw, that brought her down. Most people didn't even know, Johnny even existed. She was hiding him like a dirty secret. Treating him like a dog. I later asked her, why she was doing this to him and she said, she got cursed by God. She had betrayed him and their beliefs, so that she got cursed with an impure child. Filth. That Johnny was her punishment." Richard stopped and closed his eyes. "It should have stopped right there and anything would never had happened. This child never understood, why she was doing this to him. And when you're always getting told, that you're worth shit, you start to believe it someday."

"So, John and his father were mentally challenged people. Ray Darmer only for the trained eye, I assume. He gave it to his son. The woman wanted to create a perfect world, which doesn't allow any imperfections and rejected her son from the beginning. Am I correct, so far?" Hotch asked, pretty surprised by the story.

The old man nodded slowly. "Johnny got mistreated. He had to face the hate of his mother everyday. It broke him. He didn't understand. But, it all got worse when Johhny turned 16. His mother was murdered. She was found dead on their grounds. The people were shocked. They couldn't believe, they had murderer within their society. And Johnny was gone. Only a few knew he existed and kept silent about it, because of her. Some where loyal until the end. But after that, the cult dissolved completely, lost their faith. More left, more new folks came. But all those prejudices lasted and were given from parents to children. Everything what was different got ignored and rejected. I started to work for the police that time. And then Johnny was back. He returned home. I first didn't recognize him, until I spoke to him. Of course, I knew it was him who killed his mother all along. But, I guess he did the townspeople a huge favor. So I let it rest. Everyone deserves a chance, especially him. And who could blame him, after what she'd done to him. Locking him up in the basement with nothing but darkness and bugs. He even found himself a job at the horse ranch, teaching the kids how to ride, looking after the horses. For a few years, I thought everything was fine. He himself was still a kid. But eventually, Johnny slowly developed interest for the females. But all those teenagers would do, was laugh at him or showed him their disgust. It angered him, because it was like his mother had treated him. At that time, I had a daughter myself. Not my real daughter though, but I took care of her, after her parents had died in a car crash. She was different, too. She suffered the very same. She often came home crying. Her name was Lisa Cunnings." Richard heaved a big sigh to those painful memories and slowly raised his hands to cover his face.

Reid could very much sympathize. He knew what it felt like to get bullied. He could relate to both, Johnny and Lisa, suffering from peoples cruelty. "About the unsub's mother locking him up. Well, that's exactly what he's doing to his victims. And making them eat their own tongues, it all is because of the constant mocking. He's enraged and this his only way to deal with it. To shut them up and get revenge."

"Lisa was mentally challenged, too. Did John and her share a friendly relationship?" Hotch asked Richard, who still sat there, breathing heavily in and out.

They waited few more moments longer, watching him, as he mentally fought to regain his composure. Then he shot up and laughed nervously. "I'll go and make another cup of coffee. This is taking longer, than I expected!"

"Take your time." Rossi said softly, seeing how the old man was a bit out of loop from recalling his past all at once. He needed a short break from it.

After he had brought them some new coffee, he sat down again and continued with his much calmer voice from earlier.

"I kept Lisa away from Johnny. I didn't want her to be to close to him. After all, he killed his mother. He never learned anything, loving and caring parents would teach their children. Usually, all he did was talking to the horses. His mind was still the one of a kid in an upgrown body. No one ever told him, how to deal with his urges and issues, I guess. And then..." His voice staggered under his breath. "..we found Sarah dead. I swear, on that day, I actually aged 10 years. I never had seen anything like that. It was like a bad dream. We heard from her friends, he had given her flowers and she just laughed at him for being such a fool. I had no evidence, but again, I knew it was him. But I couldn't prove it. Then Linda disappeared. And I swear, he got wiser. We talked to everyone, did researchings and interrogating so many people until someone from another town told us, she had been seen with Johnny. He didn't do it here, but 20 miles away. We were short on man power and so Washington send us some men. We couldn't handle it alone anymore. We found her weeks later. I presented my results to Gideon and he made a short profile. It fitted. Perfectly. John had been our prior suspect all along. And with Linda he wasn't satisfied. He wanted a girlfriend so badly, it drove him crazy. When Lisa was taken, I nearly lost it." Again Richard stopped. He took a few sips of his coffee and slowly gathered himself.

"I owe Gideon a lot. He helped me to get through all of it. Lisa had gone missing and John had vanished with her. I swear we looked for her almost all over Virginia. And he probably sat somewhere in his cave, playing house with my little girl. I'll never forgive myself, that it all happened to her. She is my little baby, you know. All those terrible things. She was with him for more than 5 weeks! Imagine this happening to a young girl! She can't understand the world as it is. She's experiencing things in an other way, unlike us. We finally found her. She was dead and Johnny ran away, again. But I know, he'll return. He'll always come home." Richard's face exposed true horror and his voice was loud and agitated. "I've been carrying those regrets and the guilt for so long now. If I had done more, the poor girls could have been saved. None of it would have ever happened!"

In Reid's head, Richard's words echoed on and on. This was exactly the same reason, why Gideon had ran off. All these regrets and feeling weak and powerless. He couldn't take it any longer. Reid seriously wondered, if he himself would end up like those men one day. He already had seen enough terrible things, that would last for two lifes. How much had Gideon seen? He could only guess.

Silence struck the house and the only noise was the ticking clock on the wall. All eyes rested on the old, pitiful man, who had lost everything he ever got. Reid's brain started to process all the information he just got told. Rossi and Hotch could see it working behind his concerned looking feature.

"Did she suffered the same injuries like the others? Where did you find her? And how?" Rossi seemed not satisfied with the man's explanation.

"Yeah, she did! All those horrifying stuff! She was captured in a cave deep within the woods! Can you just leave now? I'm kinda exhausted." The three agents were surprised by his sudden rudeness. "Alright." Rossi replied calmly, motioning the others to follow him.

"Thank you, Sir. We'll leave you alone for now. You 've been a great help." Hotch rose up and Rossi followed. Reid stared into his empty cup. He really had begun to like that man's special homemade brew. "Reid." Hotch called softly. "Oh...yeah. Coming."

At the door, they shook hands with Richards and shared a few comforting words with him.

"Dr. Reid?" Spencer stopped on the first step, when Garraty called him. The others nodded briefly and left the two alone. "Yeah?" The older man seemed apologetic. "I'm sorry, if I said the wrong thing earlier, you know, about you and Jason."

Reid bit his lip, but then smiled weakly. "You didn't. I'm grateful, you told me. It means a lot to me, actually. Thanks." Richard returned the smile. "I knew it would. Take care, kid." The smile changed into a pretty sly one. "I will. You, too." Reid waved him a goodbye with one hand and then stopped. "It wasn't your fault, it all happened. Sometimes, you're not able to do anything. What's done is done."

Richard's features lit up for a brief moment. "You sound exactly like Jason." Reid smiled wryly, then shoved his hands into his pockets, before turning around to join up with the others. The old man watched as the SUV driving off into the dark and grinned to himself. "Gideon was right. He is a special one."

"What's up?" Dave asked Spencer, who had been silent for over 20 minutes now. They were on their way back to Quantico.

"I don't know. Something seemed off." Rossi nodded at him. "I didn't saw a single picture of his deceased foster-daughter, though it could be the fact, he still can't take it to look at her. But, it's strange."

The doctor was surprised. "You noticed, too? " Dave looked amused. "You might be a genius. But, I have more experience." He said mockingly. "What are we gonna do?" Reid's met Hotch eyes in the rear mirror. "We need to go back for now. I'll give Officer Wright a call to dig around some more."

Greenville, VA, Richard Garraty's house

The old man sat in his kitchen sipping on his coffee. It was short after midnight and he couldn't bring himself to sleep much and finally got up again. Haunting pictures from the past disturbed his sleep and a subtle sense of dark foreboding kept eating away on his insides. He won't let his guard down this time. there was so much he had to atone for. He had been so stupid. He had seen it coming and just watched.

So much to regret.

A knock on the door ripped him out of his thought. He rose and his bones cracked. So old. What could he do with this weak old body?Nothing.

Richard slowly went to the front door, the knocks got louder. "I'm coming. Don't rush an old man like me!" He rumbled in deep, snarling voice. "Who's there?" He wouldn't open up so easily. The man outside probably thought the same and kicked the old wooden door down. Richard couldn't run. The shock pretty made weak heart jump and then it nearly stopped. He had to face his punishment.

"Hello, Uncle Richy." The last thing, he could think of, before a sharp pain went through his head, was that he had been a fool all along. And Johhny Lee had been right to stalk the old man. He had always been kind of a nuisance and he never liked those sharp eyes of him. And letting FBI agents into the house just like that, wasn't something to take lightly. Even a dumb man like himself knew that.

Dun~dun~dun!

We'll be back soon after the commercial break. Stay tuned.


	3. Rejected Chapter 3

Hello folks! It's time for another chap. Hope you're enjoying yourself so far.

**ghostdolly**: Thanks a lot for the reviews! Hope I fixed the errors, you pointed out to me. I took your advice and I'm currently looking for a beta reader, because my grammar just sucks. ^_^ But, until now, no one offered their services. Sadly.

If someone here would volunteer to become my beta, I'd really appreciate it!

But for now, this story still comes un-beta'd with all it's misspellings and grammatical errors. All I can do is apologize and hope, that it won't ruin the story too much.

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**Criminal Minds - The Lost Episodes**

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The Reid Files

Episode 1

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**Rejected**

**Chapter 3**

'Paradise Coffee and Tales', Woodbridge, Washington D.C.

"Morning." Reid smiled at his opposite behind the counter. "Morning, Sir." She already put two coffees up in front of him. "Wow. You're fast." The doctor remarked happily. "I noticed you outside, before coming in and got them ready. You're always in such a hurry." She replied, examinating his face with a curious look.

"Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for being so considerate." He pulled out his money. "I also came prepared today."

"Looks like we both learned something!" She exclaimed laughing, took the bill, then put his change next to the coffees. "You look tired, though." She said softly, recognizing that the dark shades around his eyes were even more darker than usual.

Reid tried to avoid eye contact with the brunette, cause he felt pretty exposed to her researching gaze. "I hear that alot, actually." He laughed nervously and quickly snatched both paper cups. "Gotta go!" And with that said, he jogged off to the doors.

"You forgot your change!" She yelled, causing him to trip over his own feet and nearly landing flat-faced on the ground.

"Keep it! For the excellent service!" He called back, while he rushed out. He realized, that he instantaneously drew way too much attention on him than he actually felt comfortable with and his face heated up. He shook his head at himself and ran for it or he'd be late, again.

B.A.U. headquarters, Quantico

"Oh, can I have one, please? I didn't make it to the shop this morning!" Prentiss tried to grab one his cups. Reid protectively held them close to his chest. "No!" Emily pulled a face. "Don't be so rude and egoistic. Remember, we're a team! We share everything!"

Spencer looked at her sceptically. "Oh, that's so shady." But it worked nonetheless. She really made it to make him feel guilty, thus he reluctantly handed her one of the cups. "You just had to go and pull that card out...?" He complaint sulking. Emily smiled satisfied with herself. "You're so easy to read."

"What about Reid's being easy to read?" Morgan asked as he plopped up out of nowhere and then down on his desk next to them.

"Nothing." Spencer snapped shortly. "I was just teasing him a bit." The brunette grinned at Morgan. "Don't do that. You know how sensible he can be." Reid's eyes shifted from one to another. His mouth was agape, because he was fully aware of the sarcasm in Derek's voice.

"What about Spencer, being too sensible?" JJ magically joined them and sat down on the doctor's desk. "Emily was mocking Reid." Morgan willingly filled her in. Reid just blinked at the unbelievable good timing, his team members showed off today. "I'm not. And she manipulated me." He chipped in, sounding a bit more firmer than earlier. Emily wiggled her coffee at JJ. "Well, looks like she succeeded."

"Morning, team! We'll meet in the briefing room in five minutes!" Hotch announced loudly, as he came out of his office, heading their direction with Rossi on his tail. Reid let out a relieved sigh. "Thank you so much, Hotch." The agent looked at him puzzled. He obviously had missed out on something. "You're welcome...?" The others just grinned.

"Hotch. There's a call for you. Officer Wright from Greenville." JJ told him over the phone. "Alright. Put him up." He had called the officer this morning and wasn't expecting a response so soon. "Agent Hotchner. You need to come over here. I went to check up on Richard Garraty, like you told me to and I...found him dead. Someone killed him. I believe it was Darmer. It was confirmed, he had been here by an old lady, who saw him driving around town." His voice was shaky as he talked. Hotch shot up from his chair. "My team and I are on our way."

"He killed Garraty? Why? He didn't pose much of a threat. Why'd he do that?" Rossi kept on thinking out loud on their drive. "Maybe he really knew something and Darmer wanted to make sure it wouldn't leak." Hotch reasoned logically.

"I wouldn't be too surprised, if we find something interesting in his house." Reid growled from the back, he shared with Prentiss. "Also, we need to search the town and get a subscription of him."

Greenville, VA,

As the team arrived at Garraty's house, they saw Officer Wright and three more man waiting in front it. "Well, wouldn't have had expected to see you so soon again and not under those circumstances...Poor old man." He greeted them, appearing pretty troubled.

"Right." Hotch nodded and took the opportunity to introduce him to Emily. "This is Agent Prentiss. Could you take her with you to visit the old lady, you mentioned on the phone? Also, we need to know if someone else has seen him. Maybe he was at the gas station, supermarket or other public places. If they use surveillance cameras, maybe we could get a picture of him." He ordered hastily.

"Alright." He agreed and told the other Officers to join them, leaving the crime scene to Hotch, Rossi and Reid.

They stepped carefully inside and the familiar smell of coffee and must crawled up their noses. Rossi knelt down beside dead Richard together with Hotchner, while Reid examined what was left of the door. "Wow. He must be a huge, strong guy, to be able to do something like that."

The agents briefly glanced up at him then lowered their gazes, in order to shift the doctor's focus on the dead body. "He killed him with the same brute force." Garraty's face was literally nothing more than a bloody pulp. "What made him go against him with so much violence?" Rossi averted his eyes from what was left of Garraty's face.

Hotch stood up and dusted his knees off. "He's afraid and acted on pure instinct. He didn't want Garraty to tell his stories to anyone."

"Could it be, he saw us with him?" Reid's head perked up. Rossi groaned. "That would explain this. Maybe he saw us at the station..." Then he stood up as well.

"Come on. Let's search the house." He said and went towards the living room, Reid and Hotch splitted up as well, the younger went upstairs, Hotch opened the door to a room, which looked like an office.

After a few minutes, Reid shouted from upstairs. "Guys!" The two agents ran up and met Reid in the bedroom hunched over a messy pile of papers and pictures.

"It was like that, when I came in. I guess, Darmer searched it." Hotch picked up a photo with a young girl, about 5 years old, on it. Her hair was dark brown, ending right above her shoulders. She was holding a children's book up and into the camera lense. The exposed happy smile made him guess, she just got it from her foster-dad.

Reid looked at some letters and took a sharp breath in. "What?" Hotch and Rossi asked simultaneously. "She didn't die. She survived. And I guess, our unsub just found out, as well." Reid stared at the letter in his hands.

While the other officers went around town to ask people about Darmer, Prentiss and Wright were on their way to the old lady.

"So, must be tough." Joseph tried to strike up a conversation. "What?" She blinked at him. "The job, I mean. You guys are confronted with this kind of stuff almost everyday." Wright explained his guess with a frown. "It is sometimes." She replied softly, then realized he actually was pretty pale. "You alright?"

The officer rubbed his eyes, as to wipe away the images of Richard's dead body. "I couldn't even bear to look at him. To be honest, I had to ran outside and throw up right away." He uttered and pulled a wry face.

"It's alright. It isn't something you come across everyday." Emily tried to comfort him and Joseph shrugged. "Richard always said, he knew this would gonna happen." Emily nodded silently. She knew, that he referred to Garraty's story he had told the others. Apparently, Garraty had been telling his story to Joseph, as well. "And he wanted to make sure, that someone would catch that guy." Wright added and seemed rather ashamed.

The female presented him with an assuring, soft smile. "He entrusted it to you, right?" Wright bit his lip and lowered his eyes, but didn't reply. "We're working on it." Emily tried to comfort him up.

Joseph parked the car in front of a huge old house and both approached the front door and rang the bell. "Who is this?" A suspicious, croaky lady's voice asked. "M'am, it's Officer Wright again and the FBI. We need to ask you about Johnny Lee." Joseph called out quite loud and Emily flinched. She didn't expected this and shot him an odd look. "Sorry. She's almost deaf." The man sheepishly whispered his excuse. "Oh..."

The door creaked open and the old lady pursed her lips. "FBI? Well, it's about time you do something about that freak."

Both stepped inside and were lead into the living room to sit down. Emily folded her hands in her lap. "We're sorry to disturb you, M'am. But I need to know, where and when you saw John Lee Darmer. Are you sure it was him?"

The old woman's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward, cocking her head. An irritated Emily looked at her and then the officer chuckled next to her. "Louder. She didn't get you." Emily looked down guiltily and tried again.

"Oh! Yes, yes. He just passed my house, when I went to get the mail. I recognized him right away. He's a monster of a man. Tall and broad shoulders and chest and there's no way I could ever forget his stupid face, either." Emily sighed. "Tell me more. What's his hair look like? Glasses? Beard? I need details, m'am."

The woman cupped her face, thinking hard for a few seconds. "He has blond-ish hair, short. His clothes looked old. No glasses, but something close to a two-day-old beard. He looked like, he doesnn't take care of himself. I wish he would shave his face and cut his throat with that razor." She hissed through clenched jaws. Prentiss groaned a bit. "Please, m'am." Officer Wright covered his forehaed with his right palm and Emily turned to face him.

"I reckon, you don't have a police sketcher sticking around, do you?" She asked slightly frustrated. His expression told her no, but then it lit up. "Well, I'm pretty good at drawing." He stuttered slightly embarressed. The agent lifted her brows at him in happy surprise. "Mam, can you get us a sheet of paper and a pencil?"

Hotch, Rossi and Reid had settled on the bedroom floor in Garraty's house and began browsing all the personal stuff, Garraty had left. Letters, notes and photos that could fill a whole lifetime and certainly did. "There are no senders on the envelopes. He was a very careful man."

"So, why did he lie?" Rossi asked warily.

Reid cleared his throat. "To keep her save. He wanted the unsub to believe, he succeeded in killing her, so he won't go after her a second time." Rossi examined Reid's face curiously. "He kept her for five weeks. Why? Didn't take him that long to kill the others. Something else must've happened." Hotch interrupted him abruptly. "He maybe lied about that, too."

The older man shook his head. "He wasn't. I could see the pain in his eyes, about what Darmer maybe did to her while she was with him. He said, the unsub probably played 'house' with her." Reid listened closely and hummed. "She was different from the others. Richard also said, that those two had much in common. Maybe she never rejected him in the first place." The doctor speculated towards the same direction as Rossi did.

"Well, not until he abducted her and she escaped." Hotch growled. "Maybe, he was still looking for someone, who is similar to her. Until now."

Suddenly his phone started buzzing. "Yeah, JJ?" Hotch listened to her and his face darkened immediately. "What is it?" Rossi asked, noticing it.

"Missing girl. Around the same area, the last one had disappeared..." Before he could talk further on, Reid let out a surprised, loud gasp. "Oh my god! I think know her!"

"What?" Hotch ripped the photo from a flabbergasted Reid's hand to look at it, then showed it to Dave. "Let's pack this stuff together. We're leaving! I'll give Prentiss a call!"

Oooh! Short one, but hopefully not less effective.

Well,I guess you already can tell, who the mysterious girl might be, but just act a little surprised, will you?

We'll be back soon after a really short interruption for another comercial break. Later!


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